London has been battered by 50mph winds that have felled trees and caused travel chaos. Powerful gusts swept across the capital as the Met Office issued a yellow "be aware" weather alert for most of the country.

Chelsea FC chairman Roman Abramovich looked a bit glum in the Italian resort of Portofino with his girlfriend, Dasha Zhukova, with his yacht the Eclipse parked nearby. Was this because he has been upstaged as football’s biggest spender? After all, as Simon Kuper notes in today’s FT, it’s a status symbol. “Buying Bale is not like buying a machine that will provide an annual return,” he noted in today’s FT.